Good point! If I'm interested in why something is the way it is, then I'm not going to be satisfied with an explanation of what it is. — Pneumenon

It seems to me to be both ways. To say what something is, is to also say why it is. And why something is includes what it is.

I show you a broken crowbar and tell you what it is: "This is a broken crowbar."
You ask, "Why is it broken?"
I say, "Because it's in two halves."
This is not a good answer on my part if you want to know how the crowbar ended up being broken. — Pneumenon

You didn't answer "why" it was broken. You answered "what" broken is, which wasn't the question, which is why your answer is no good and has nothing to do with why the crowbar was broken.

When we ask, "What?", we are asking for the properties of some object or state-of-affairs as a "snap-shot" in time - the way it is now. But objects and processes exist in time. They have a history of interacting with the rest of the world. Asking, "Why?", something is is to ask about it's existence in time and about it's relationships with the rest of reality.

It seems to me that you would have an incomplete explanation as to what something is without the why it is that way.

I haven't heard any convincing arguments for it. The ones I hear can easily be flipped around: "Everything your body does boils down to the interaction of its fundamental particles." Flip it around: "Any fundamental particle in my body does what it does as a result of its interactions with the particles around it."

Any attempt to boil this stuff down to fundamental particles can be bounced back up to a higher scale in analogous manner. There's just no reason to be that kind of reductionist. — Pneumenon

Talk of "fundamental particles" and of "higher scales" is really just talk about different perspectives of the same thing. Different perspectives can be in different locations of the same size scale, or from the from different size scales. Your argument is derived from the idea that any "view" can only be a anthropomorphic one - one that only exists on our time and size scale, with the tiniest things that we can observe (tiny compared to us) being "fundamental" while the large things (large compared to us) are "higher scale".

Does might make right? That depends on what you mean by "right".

Someone can point a gun at me and give me the choice of accepting that the Earth is flat or not, killing me if I say the Earth is round. But that doesn't make them right - just someone who is wrong that happens be holding a gun.

This idea of "might makes right" only becomes a dilemma for those that believe that the power behind a belief is more than the actual relationship between the belief and the way things actually are.

Truth cannot be realized by means of tradition, authority or revelation - only by logic and reason.

Maybe one approach would be to ask, instead of the cause of why something happens, ask for the reason that it happens. They're sometimes the same, but they're sometimes not. One example that might draw out the difference it the two possible responses to the question 'why is the water boiling?' One answer is: water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, and it's being heated by an electric current. Another answer is: I am boiling the water because I intend to make tea. It's a trivial example but nevertheless makes a distinction between efficient and formal causation in a pragmatic way.

The first kind of causation is generally more specific and is often the subject of scientific analysis - what causes this malady; why do continents move; why do planetary orbits have the form they do. I think that's the source of a lot of your 'bottom-up billiard ball theorising'. — Wayfarer

Asking "why", or "how" is the same as asking the "reason" something happens. I still don't see a difference between "efficient" cause and any other cause. Your intent preceded all these other causes that end up leading to the effect of making tea. Your intent still had to move your body to the kitchen, get out the pot, fill it with water, put it on the stove, turn the stove on, put the tea in the water, etc. If just one of these things don't get done, then you won't have tea. The tea doesn't make itself. The tea in the future doesn't bring all these causes to fruition. After all, we may fail to make tea as something may interrupt us and cancel our tea-making. In other words, intent doesn't always bring what is projected into view. Actually, intent is the only cause that often fails in producing the intended effect. That doesn't seem to happen with the other kinds of causes we observe in nature. This is because intent is really just a prediction.

Neither. Its a picture. A picture of what, you may ask. Ask the artist, would be my reply.

well, if you had no visual content, could you say that you are looking at anything?

It's not just colors, but also shapes arranged in a particular pattern. And isnt it the case that I'm comparing those patterns to those stored in memory to say that im looking at a tree?

It's odd how when you drive a car through a narrow space, you squeeze your shoulders closer to compress yourself. Wittgenstein had a question about feeling one's way with a stick: if the stick taps hard ground, where do you feel the hardness? — mcdoodle

Feelings appear only in consciousness as a representation of the state-of-affairs that is the ground.

As jkop said earlier, if you start with an assumption of external reality you're bound to find it necessary. But what justifies your starting there? I can close my eyes and inhabit Mahler's Fifth: am I not conscious in that orchestra there with old Gustav? — mcdoodle

You are conscious of the fact that you are imagining things. Does the orchestra sound exactly like you were there? Doesn't it sound less raw, or vivid, that you actually being there? How is it that you are conscious of the fact that you are imagining something and not really there and how do you reconcile that with saying "I am conscious in that orchestra"? Aren't you conscious of an imagining, and not really of an orchestra?

If there isn't an external world, then all of our words don't refer to, or mean, anything. We would never be talking about things that exist independent of the words themselves, or states-of-affairs that exist independent of our experience of them. Language is built on the premise of object permanence.

Say you're staring at a tree. You move about 180 degrees around the tree and stare again.

1. The content of your visual field changed,
2. but you're still looking at the same tree.
C1: Therefore, your knowledge of the tree is not derived from the content of your visual field
3. Knowledge of the tree is not apriori — Mongrel

I don't see how C1 follows. How did you know that you were looking at a tree in the first place, and what does it mean to "look at" at tree?

You "know" that you are looking at the same tree because you moved and the tree didn't. You also "know" that trees are three-dimensional, which means that they have multiple sides, so you simply moved to another side. But how do I "know" any of this if not by prior experiences (particularly prior visual experiences) with trees?

Do you think information has an objective, mind-independent existence?

I have my doubts. I think maybe the mind creates information about the world. The world exists as it is, but we derive information about it as we interact with the world. — Marchesk

I have the sense of gathering or acquiring information, not arbitrarily creating it. If the relationship between a criminal's behavior and the evidence that is left behind didn't exist independently of the criminal investigator's mind, then the criminal investigator is jut making up the relationship between the evidence and some cause of the evidence's existence.

When a lumberjack cuts down a tree, he can see tree rings in the stump. These rings carry information about the age of the tree. The lumberjack's mind didn't create this relationship between the tree rings and the age of the tree. The tree did, naturally, by how it grows throughout the year.

The relationship between cause and effect exists independently of our minds. Our minds create time and space, which essentially is the stretching of these relationships. Our sensory-brain system is a causal system and is part of the world as well, and the frequency at which it functions is relative to the rest of the processes of reality. So our minds have this kind of skewed view of reality with all relationships appearing relative to each of us (hot/cold, small/large, near/far, fast/slow, past/present (ME)/future, etc.). This is why these causal relationships seem to be connected yet stretched out over "time" to us.

Two things which are opposite, like negative and positive, or, is and is not, are exactly the same in every way, except in the way of opposition. — Metaphysician Undercover

Here, in describing "opposition", you even say that these things are the same in every way except in the way of opposition? Aren't you then saying that they are different in some way? What is the opposite of "the same"?

This question doesn't make sense. How is it that you know anything? To experience something is not sufficient for knowing something, the experience must be remembered. So if you are asking me how I know I am getting opposition right, I might as well ask you how do you know you are getting anything right? — Metaphysician Undercover

So you need to remember my post before you know what it says? How does that make any sense to you? You can know how to do things without remembering how you learned it - like walking. You know that you are walking because you have the experience of walking at the moment - without remembering how you learned it.

Experience = knowledge, and experience can be a momentary thing, or something that takes time. We can have the knowledge that something is happening right now, like I'm walking or reading a post, or something that happens over a long period of time, like I'm aging.


Of course it does. Opposition is a kind of difference. — Harry Hindu

No, that's wrong. If opposition is a certain type of difference, then describing difference does not tell one what opposition is. Does describing colour tell you what red is? — Metaphysician Undercover

You aren't reading my posts again. Look again, I said, "Opposition is a kind of difference." You're confusing types with kinds. Describing what opposition is tells you about a kind of difference.

You really don't understand opposition do you? It is purely conceptual. It is not the case that this thing is opposite to that thing, that's just a complete misrepresentation of opposition. — Metaphysician Undercover

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Exactly. Opposition is conceptual. It is an idea, and ideas can only come about as the result of experiences.

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, sure it does. Which pocket did the black ball go in, and where is that relative to the other balls still on the table? Billiard balls leave colored marks on each other after you hit it. Ever seen a well-used cue ball?

Why would we want to share our quale anyway? What would be the point? What new knowledge would we acquire that we can't already acquire via our own observations, or via language? If I told you I see a blue sky, why would you need to experience my quale? What new knowledge you you gain that you wouldn't have by looking at me looking at the sky, or by hearing my words? — Harry Hindu

I have not the least idea. — unenlightened

Then asking why we can't access other people's quale is one of those nonsensical philosophical questions that, even if we did answer, wouldn't provide us with any useful knowledge.

If our "subjective" experiences are unshareable then that would mean that the world outside our minds is also unshareable - meaning that the information out there never gets in here, and the information in here never gets out there. But it does get in here and out there, and it does so via the process of causation. Effects carry information about their causes.

No, I read your posts, but we're both on completely different wavelengths. You use the word "experience" in a way which doesn't make sense to me. I don't think that opposition is something which can be experienced. You assume that opposition is experienced, and use your words in a way which demonstrates this belief, but this makes your words nonsensical to me. — Metaphysician Undercover

Here's a definition of experience from Merriam-Webster:
Experience: the fact or state of having been affected by or gained knowledge through direct observation or participation
If you never experienced opposition, how do you even know you are getting it right without having ever experienced it? How is it that you know that you understand opposition?

So in order to make your words make sense to me, you need to explain to me how you experience opposition. Just insisting that opposition is part of your experience doesn't help me, I need you to describe the experience of opposition. And describing differences does not describe opposition. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course it does. Opposition is a kind of difference.

No, that's not true. That one thing is not the same as another does not produce the idea of opposition. Two things which are opposite, like negative and positive, or, is and is not, are exactly the same in every way, except in the way of opposition. They differ in only one particular way, and that is that they are opposite, in every other way, they are exactly the same. So a colour and a sound are different, but they are not at all opposite to one another. — Metaphysician Undercover

Black and white aren't opposites?

I don't see the relevance of such a hypothetical question. How am I supposed to describe to you an experience which I've never had? Your question is nonsense, it doesn't get us any closer to understanding what opposition is, nor does it make your point, that you can experience opposition. It's just a distraction. — Metaphysician Undercover

Give me a break, dude. Now you're telling me that you have never attempted to imagine what it's like having other experiences that you never had in a sorry attempt to evade a pertinent question.

Clearly, opposition is not part of one's experience, yet we compare is and is not, positive and negative. How do you account for this? If you do not allow that some things being compared in mental activity, are actually outside of one's experience, you'll always have an unintelligible representation of mental activity. Why do you insist that it's nonsense to compare things which are not within your experience? This appears to be an assumption which is totally unwarranted, and unjustified, yet you'll defend it to your wits end, for no apparent reason. — Metaphysician Undercover

Now you aren't making any sense, whatsoever. [/i]What[/i] is it that is in opposition? How does it make any sense to think of opposition without including what it is that is in opposition? Notice how you can't adequately describe opposition without using examples of your experiences - like with numbers and is and is not? How do you know what opposition is without experiencing it? How did you acquire that knowledge, and how do you confirm that knowledge?

It is objectively true that you are on the moon, but I don't think whatever could possibly comprise that experience, or for that matter any experience, can be fully reduced to objective description. I think there is subjective reality and it is part of what it means to experience anything. To say things are separate/independent of the mind, I think is problematic, since a mind is needed to posit them. — Cavacava

But we can reduce it to an objective description. I simply need to describe what I'm experiencing. If you were there on the moon with me, what would be the point of describing it to you? It would be redundant.

Is it not part of objective reality that you are on the moon, that you have a vantage point, and that you have experiences? To say that there is "subjective reality" without the additional point that this "subjective reality" is part of the objective reality that I am part of too, is to trip yourself into the nonsense of solipsism.

Is positing something the same as giving it existence? I can think about being on the moon, but doing so doesn't put me on the moon. If it does, then why is thinking, or imagining something so different than actually experiencing it directly? Why is my imagining far less detailed and vivid than the real thing?

It's a problem isn't it? One has to say that they are sharing associations, responses (behaviours) but not the quale. Because that is what the quale is supposed to consist of - the unsharable aspect of experience. But strip away all the associations and responses that we clearly can talk about because we just did, and there seems to me at least, to be nothing left that is the quale itself. The box turns out not to have much of a beetle after all. — unenlightened

But how can we share quale without becoming the person themselves? That would be like asking what it is like for that apple to have the same colors, shape, texture, aroma, taste and position in space-time that this apple has. If that were the case, it would be the same apple.

Why would we want to share our quale anyway? What would be the point? What new knowledge would we acquire that we can't already acquire via our own observations, or via language? If I told you I see a blue sky, why would you need to experience my quale? What new knowledge you you gain that you wouldn't have by looking at me looking at the sky, or by hearing my words?

I really don't see how a sensory experience of seeing the colour green can be construed as a sensory experience of seeing not-red. This conclusion must be produced by deduction. Therefore it is a logical conclusion that this is seeing not-red, it is not a sensory experience of not-red, whatever that might mean. Otherwise we could conclude that the sensation of seeing green is a sensory experience of seeing not-cold, or seeing not-big, or seeing not-solid, or any other random conclusion. But these random conclusions are just that, logical conclusions, they are not sensory experiences.

Or is this what your trying to argue, that the experience of seeing colours can be described as the experience of not-hearing sound? That's actually nonsense, because to determine that something is not-sound requires that one have knowledge of what sound is, and this is not prerequisite for seeing colour. So it's obvious that one can experience colour without this colour being not-sound if there were no such thing as sound. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't see how this is so difficult for you to grasp. I think you're blowing through my posts without taking the time to actually read it - every word.

Actually, it is you that has been arguing that you can experience opposition without any experiences. This is starting to get to the point of where I get bored of having to repeat myself and repeat your own position that you seem to not understand yourself.

I did say that we experience a plethora of colors, right? I did say that we experience colors with sounds much of the time. When we have experiences of multiple things, that is where we get the idea of opposition - that the sound I experience isn't the same thing as the colors I experience, and even the colors are different. This is why I kept posing the question (and you refuse to answer, while I have addressed every point and question you have made) of what we would think about if all we had was an experience of just one thing - just one color - that's it. By saying that it is nonsense to determine that something is not something else because you haven't had any experience with it is what I have been saying, not you.

We are talking about the difference between what is and what is not. To experience a friend's presence, then to experience that person's lack of presence, is not an experience of "the friend is not". — Metaphysician Undercover

We are talking about the difference between what is and what is not. To experience a friend's presence, then to experience that person's lack of presence, is not an experience of "the friend is not". — Metaphysician Undercover

Really? Then what would be an experience of "the friend is not" if you experienced the friend just a moment ago and now you don't after they walked through the door?

No, I don't agree with you, because I disagree that this is a sensory experience of is and is not. You experience the presence of your friend, and you may conclude, "the friend is". Then, later this experience is replaced by other experiences and these other experiences are not experiences of "the friend is not", they are other experiences. It requires that one compare one experience to the other, to conclude logically that one experience is not the same as the other, and therefore conclude that one is not the other. This is not itself a sensory experience, it is a comparison of sensory experiences, producing a logical conclusion.

The comparison of sensory experiences, which is what some mental activity consists of, is not itself a sensory experience. What you do not seem to be grasping is that mental activity consists of such comparisons, and there is no need that the things being compared are sensory experiences. So mental activity can proceed by comparing things which are not sensory experiences. This is the case when we compare is and is not, these things are logical principles, they are not sensory experiences. — Metaphysician Undercover

When I used the term, "experience", I'm talking about the whole deal - the entirety of all of your colors, shapes, sounds, etc. What you do with those colors (comparing them, etc.) is also part of the experience you are having. I don't recall calling the mental act of comparing a sensory experience. It is simply an experience composed of sensory impressions. What I have said, and I'll say one last time, is that your whole experience, whether it be comparing, imagining, or whatever, is composed of sensory data. To say that you can compare things that aren't within your experience is to say what you just said previously - that it's nonsense.

If we try to compare our private unsharable experience of red, one might say, 'it reminds me of the peace and comfort of the womb, I have my bedroom painted red, because it is relaxing', and the other might say, 'I find it stimulating and exciting, I also have my bedroom painted red, but for quite different reasons', and another might not like red at all, and find it provokes anxiety and stress. — unenlightened

How is it that these three people aren't sharing their "unsharable" experience of red, when they use language to share their experiences of red? If it were "unsharable", then we shouldn't even be able to communicate it, much less have listeners understand it.

But isn't this the point of the Mary's room thought experiment: the subjective experience of being on the moon cannot be adequately described objectively. — Cavacava

Why not? Is it not objectively true that you are on the moon and have a vantage point from on the moon, and experience colors and feelings of weightlessness?

I don't think your experience of being on the moon could ever be reduced to physicalistic interpretations such as neurons firing. — Cavacava

A physicalist interpretation is just that - an interpretation, or a model, just as your visual experience is a model, not how the world really is beyond your experience of it. So to say, that there are neurons firing is a visual model, or explanation, of the world, or some process that is part of it.

No there is no experience of such a distinction, that's the point. What kind of experience is an experience of is not? There's no such experience. The idea of "is not" is not derived from experience, it comes from something else. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course there is. As I was saying, when you have an experience, it isn't of just one color across your visual field and nothing else. You have an experience of a plethora of colors, and each color is different, or not the other colors. The colors are also not the feelings and sounds that you also experience, which are different. This is what I mean by differentiation being brute and automatic. This is why I asked the question at the end of my post.

The local environment doesn't provide you with an experience of is not, that's the point. Whatever is not within the local environment you do not experience, so you cannot get this idea of "is not" from experiencing the local environment. — Metaphysician Undercover

And you can experience things, like a friend, and then not experience them. What you are saying only holds true if you have the same monotonous experience of the same thing that never disappears. Again, this is why I asked the question.

If all you experienced was blackness since you came into existence, could you say that you would be able to think? If so, what would you think of? — Harry Hindu

This experience of nothing, which you refer to, might be some sort of experience of "is not". But we do not ever experience this experience of nothing, so you cannot claim that we get this idea of nothing from experience. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, if you want to call this an experience of nothing, (I'm calling it an experience of something - the color black, as blind people don't even experience the color black. They experience nothing at all visually, kind of like what it's like seeing behind you.), then the question still stands: What would you think of?. Your reply is that they would think of nothing. While my answer is basically the same thing,as the only thing in the mind would be a field of black.

Nor can you claim that we get the idea of "is not" from experience, because "is not" refers to what is not capable of being experienced. — Metaphysician Undercover

This seems to agree with what I said about the friend. You experience them and then you don't. That in itself is an experience of "is and is not". You seem to be agreeing with me, but just can't bring yourself to accept it.

You're simply revamping my own position. To have this idea, of "is and is not", is to already experience distinctions, of different things at once or over a certain period of time. What form do these distinctions take?

We aren't going to disagree that the process of thinking includes making distinctions. Thinking wouldn't even be happening, or necessary, if some system that thinks didn't have change to process - change, the degree of which the local environment provides. If all you experienced was blackness since you came into existence, could you say that you would be able to think? If so, what would you think of?

Fair enough but I am not at all disposed to evolutionary explanations of higher-level understanding. It reduces everything to survival. — Wayfarer

Where was it ever said or written that the truth would be subject to your disposition?

You can reflect on World History and ethical dilemmas just as you can reflect on your own awareness, or your circulatory system or neural system. "You" can also be aware of your arms and legs and even your heart, and interestingly enough, if "you" look in a mirror, "you" can be aware of your face and eyes. "You" may even come to be aware of how "you" have changed.

You can't stand outside of, or objectify, experience; you can't say that 'experience is the object of awareness', because awareness of an object is an experience. 'Experience' is a transitive verb, that is, requires an object; but all experience also requires a subject. The reality comprises the subject, the object, and the experience. In that sense, subject, object and experience are all aspects or poles of the totality. — Wayfarer

Then how can it be that we are aware, or know, that we have experiences? Is it not what differentiates us from other animals - that we can turn our own awareness back on itself - of being aware of being aware - to associate this awareness with my self and to say that I am self-aware because I can be aware of my own experiences? Descartes would seem to disagree with you when he said, "I think, therefore I am." His own awareness of his own thoughts is what gives him evidence of his own existence. How are you aware of your existence, and in what way do you exist?

That's the thing with a mirage. You are never walking towards it. That is what gives it up that it isn't a pool of water. Pools of water don't change position when you do. Once your realize it's a mirage, you stop walking towards it. Once you realize you're dreaming, or hallucinating, you find that you suddenly have more control over your behavior.

I'm not referring to "the fundamental aspect of the mind". I've taken exception to your claim that "you can only think in the same forms that your experiences of the world take". What I've pointed out is that this is not true, we think in other forms, relationships which we have not experienced through our sensory perceptions of the world. Whether or not thinking in these artificial, creative, relationships is the fundamental aspect of thinking is irrelevant. What I am arguing is that they are an aspect of thinking, and cannot be so dismissed, as you claimed. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you had read all of my post from where you got that quote from, then you'd have understood that I said that the mind must have already had the capability to create associations in order to learn a language, and also creates new patterns, most are meaningless (Colourless green ideas sleep furiously), others are copies of experienced patterns (causation, language, etc.), and some new patterns that actually provide some new shared insight into ourselves and our place in reality (Theory of Natural Selection).

I'm not disagreeing that our mind can create new patterns, or relationships as you call them. My point is that even the new relationships are composed of sensory data. You can still only think in colored shapes, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings - but mostly colored shapes as we seem to think that the world is more how we see it because our sight provides us the most information about the world compared to our other senses.

"You" learned how to walk; the learning was largely accomplished in the motor cortex (which is part of "you"). "You" were never 'conscious' of the details of walking (proprioception, balance, adjustment of back, abdominal, and extremity muscle groups, etc.) but the conscious "you" was aware that you were moving about, and shared in the excitement, the pride, the thrill of moving about. — Bitter Crank

But I was conscious of the details of walking when I was learning how to walk. I don't know how many times I have said this and you continue to overlook it.

Are you saying that the purpose of consciousness, the problems that it was designed to solve by natural selection, is to be aware that I'm moving about and to share in the excitement, pride and thrill of moving about? What am I sharing the excitement with - my motor cortex?

It seems a better explanation for the reason of consciousness is for finer control over my body. Once finer control is attained and the movements for a certain task are remembered, then consciousness can relegate the instructionst for that task to the sub-conscious while it attends to "more important" tasks that require fine control and a degree of fault tolerance.

Ok, Harry, I'm done, here. You find the appropriate word to express your relation to your dreams. — unenlightened

That's simple. I'd be dreaming, just as if I were hallucinating, I'd be hallucinating. I wouldn't be aware, though. That term is reserved for actual knowledge and realization being acquired. I honestly don't see what's so difficult here. I guess some people just can't bring themselves to admit that another might have a better explanation. That's a shame.

What relationship is established with me just closing my eyes and imagining the color green? — Harry Hindu


Obviously I'm not talking about something like imagining a green colour, that would be obtained from sensory experience. I'm talking about the relationships which logic is founded on, like opposition, being and not being, or negative and positive, plus and minus, and the relationship between parts and unity which numbers use. — Metaphysician Undercover

I know exactly what you are talking about. What's obvious is that you ignored what I said. I already said that I can create illogical, meaningless patterns in my mind. If I can be illogical easier than being logical, as being logical takes more work and energy, then logical relationships cannot be the fundamental aspect of the mind. WHAT would you be logical about? Your logic still takes form. What you are saying is equivalent to saying that you can talk without words or that you can boil nothing on the stove.

, I'm just trying to make you aware that you are misusing the word, "aware". If what you are saying is true, then when you see a mirage, you are "aware" of a pool of water. When you discover that it is just an illusion, and there actually is no pool of water, then you would probably say, "I'm "aware" of a mirage.", which is saying at the same time that "I wasn't aware of a pool of water." It was only after the fact - after more facts were acquired about the experience - that you discovered that it wasn't a pool of water. The fact is that we make mistakes in interpreting our experiences. Some experiences are of being aware, some are hallucinatory or illusory - cases where we misinterpret an experience as being one in the Awareness category.

In the Merriam-Webster dictionary, aware is defined as having or showing realization, perception, or knowledge. From my viewpoint, when you go running towards nothing at all jabbering about how thirsty you are, or you point to empty space and and say, "awww look at the cute pink elephants!", you aren't exhibiting any truthful realization, perception, or knowledge. Actually, from my viewpoint, you are ignorant or having a hallucination. If I have the true vantage point, then isn't more accurate to say that I am aware, while you are simply ignorant?

What relationship is established with me just closing my eyes and imagining the color green? I can imagine things as simple as the forms my thoughts take (in this case a single color, without any relationships present). I can think of a single sound, not a spoken word or anything that would have a relationship, or association, with something else, but just a meaningless noise. This should make it evident that relationships can't be the fundamental building blocks of thought, but rather simple qualia would be. My mind only creates relationships in order to create meaning, but my mind can create meaningless patterns of words just as I can create meaningless patterns of sounds and colors.

If there are no waves in your mind, then how is it that you can say "I'm thinking of waves."? Again, I'm not saying that there are actual waves in your head. I'm saying that whatever it is that you think takes the form of the qualia that you experience of the world. To say that you can think of anything is to say that your thoughts take some form for you to even be aware that you are thinking. What form do they take?

How can you be aware after the fact without having been aware of the fact? Stop making shit up. If I hallucinate pink elephants in the garden, then I am aware of pink elephants in the garden even if they are not there. How the hell can I hallucinate pink elephants without being aware of anything? I hallucinate pink elephants, therefore I am. — unenlightened

It seems that it is you that is "making shit up". If not, then please explain how the sentence, "If I hallucinate pink elephants in the garden, then I am aware of pink elephants in the garden even if they are not there." makes any sense. How is it that you can be aware of something that isn't there? That, by definition, is what is called, "making shit up".

It also stands that at one point in my early life, I couldn't walk. Are you saying that "I" learned how to walk, or my motor cortex did? — Harry Hindu

Learning how to walk when you were transitioning from crawling around on the floor to standing up to taking steps was DIFFICULT. If you had to learn how to walk as an adult (as happens to people who have had brain injuries) it would be VERY DIFFICULT. — Bitter Crank

I don't see how this answers my question.

Yes, but I can focus on each breath I take and and change the rate of my breathing. — Harry Hindu


That's a major hunk of yoga, right there. The reason why consciously controlled breathing is psychologically significant is that the conscious part of your brain normally doesn't deal with breathing. When you are thinking about controlling your breathing you have to stop thinking about your 401K, or whatever... — Bitter Crank

This also doesn't answer my question. 0 for two?

Yes, your consciousness constructs that representation. But that representation and 50¢ won't get you a cup of coffee. The part of your brain that actually coordinates movement isn't accessible to the conscious mind, but (apparently) the motor cortex has access to the conscious mind--else it wouldn't know where you wanted to go. — Bitter Crank

If my consciousness constructs that representation, then the construction of consciousness would be in consciousness. Does that make any sense to you? It makes more sense to say that that the part of your brain that coordinates movements is the conscious mind, as I wouldn't be walking if I wasn't conscious. The sensation you feel and the experiences of control that you have actually are you controlling your body and it's movements. To say that you don't know how, but your motor cortex does, doesn't make any sense, especially if your definition of "I" or "me" includes what extends beyond my conscious mind - an inconsistency that I pointed out and that you failed to address in your last post

You are only aware of this after the fact. It is easier to recognize a day-dream because you have the outer world imposing it's existence on you when you are conscious. Hallucinations are made aware of when others you are with don't have the reaction you are expecting when you tell them what you see or hear.

When you are hallucinating or dreaming you can't say that you are actually aware of anything because the aboutness of the experience doesn't refer to anything other than the firing of some neurons. But we aren't even aware of that most of the time either. ;)

Let's just talk about the experience of the color Red. Electromagnetic waves in the external Physical World are an oscillating Electric and Magnetic phenomenon. A changing Electric field causes the Magnetic field and a changing Magnetic field causes the Electric field. This mutual interaction of the two types of fields is how the wave propagates. Now think about the Red experience. The Red experience in and of itself has nothing to do with the Electromagnetic phenomenon. There is no sense of any of the actual properties of Red Electromagnetic waves in the Red experience. There is no sense of an oscillatory phenomenon in the experience of Red. The Red experience is a whole different Kind of thing than Red Electromagnetic waves. So the Red experience is something that we see in place of actually seeing Red Electromagnetic waves.

Now the next step is to talk about the Neural Activity that occurs when Red Electromagnetic waves hit the Retina. We know that certain Neurons fire when Red Electromagnetic waves hit the Retina. But Neurons firing is not the Experience of Red. The experience of Red is a whole different thing than Neurons firing. So the Red experience is something that we see in place of actually sensing Neural Activity. That's where the Explanatory Gap comes in and that is the Hard problem of Consciousness. — SteveKlinko

All these things that you say aren't the Experience of Red (propagating, oscillating, waves, neurons firing, etc.) are all visual descriptions of some external phenomenon. When you think about propagating, oscillating waves, what color are they? What about neurons firing? What color are they? Black? Grey? In order for you to imagine these waves and neurons means you must have some visual image of them in your mind. How did you acquire these images? Isn't it because you've been shown pictures in school of waves and neurons? What color were they in the school books?

So, if these waves in your mind have a color, then if direct realism is true, then the waves out there have color and look like the waves in your mind too, right?

I don't see how the homunculus theory leads to solipsism, but to the issue of the conscious mind being a model, I would direct your attention to your attention. You experience a visual and auditory field where some parts are blurry and faded and others are more detailed and clear. It is accompanied by this force of will - of this sense of wanting, or needing, more information about something and focusing on the relevant parts of the field that would provide that information. These feelings of wanting and the amplification of certain parts of the model, or information architecture I sometimes call it, is itself part of the model. They are representations of the neural activity, or the programming of certain neurons to fire a certain way when certain signals come in, which often have to do with the process of homeostasis - of maintaining a stable body-environment relationship. When that balance is disrupted then that is when we experience the wanting, the goal-oriented thinking and the amplification of certain bits of information relevant to the task at hand. In the computer field this director of the flow of information is called the central executive. It handles the flow of data based on the information it gets from it's sensory devices (keyboards, mice, touchscreens, etc.), and what it is programmed to do with that information. Natural selection programmed us, and we cherry-pick our information based on our awareness of our short and long term goals at any moment.

When I am conscious I detect edges. We agree about that much.
When I am conscious I can touch my nose with my thumb. I bet you can too. I do not, however think that my nose or my thumb is conscious, merely sensitive. Likewise, Ido not suppose that the visual process by which I detect edges in the visual field is itself conscious, merely sensitive to edge like variations in the visual field. That is all I am saying about edge detection. — unenlightened

I don't see how your example applies. In consciousness you are aware of the will to touch the nose, and the movement of your arm and hand towards your nose and the sensation of the two touching. In edge-detection I am conscious of the will to focus my attention on a certain area of my visual field, bringing it into focus, thereby clarifying the edges of the things before me. I've done these things countless times before and I can do them with very little effort. This was not the case when I was an infant. I had to learn how to focus my eyes and coordinate my arms and legs by observing them and how I focused my attention on them. So how did these abilities go from consciously learning how to do these things, to now having the ability to do them essentially without thinking about it?

In the first instance, I am talking about what Freud meant by the unconscious, and that is why I have been at some pains to point out that the unconscious of Freudian is not the same thing as all the stuff that happens automatically, learned or innate. But many people think Freud was talking crap, so to them I would say the following.

Well I know that when I am asleep I am unconscious. And I also know that when I am asleep I have experiences, which I call dreams, in which I experience being active, having feelings and so on. It seems to follow that there is some form of awareness in me while I am unconscious. There are other indications too, but leave it at that for now. — unenlightened

But is it accurate to say that you are "aware" in your sleep. You aren't aware of anything going on outside of your body and you aren't even aware that you are dreaming. Dreams could just be hallucinations as we know that sensory deprivation for an extended period can cause hallucinations. Or, it could be similar to day-dreaming (or letting our imagination run away), but without the being aware of the rest of the world, which can make the dream more convincing and explains why we don't know that we are dreaming - like we do when we are awake.

Because "you" are in control of your arms and your legs. It's just that "you" extend beyond the function of your conscious mind. Besides, your conscious mind doesn't actually do much in the way of controlling motor functions. Do you know how to send a series of coordinated nerve impulses to the various muscles of your body so that you can walk? No, you don't. I don't either. Walking is controlled by your motor cortex (it's on the top side of your brain) and the motor cortex is not conscious. — Bitter Crank

But that's the thing. I obviously do know how to send a series of coordinated nerve impulses to various muscles in my body so that I can walk. This is especially true if the "I" extends beyond my conscious mind. Consciousness, after all, is a model of my body's interactions with the world. What I experience is a representation of me sending a series of coordinated nerve impulses to various muscles in my body so that I can walk, which is my will to do so and the conscious knowledge that I am walking.

It also stands that at one point in my early life, I couldn't walk. Are you saying that "I" learned how to walk, or my motor cortex did? Is it possible for something unconscious to learn? If so, how? How are prior experiences stored and recalled for applying them to current situations? What form do they take?

Breathing, blinking, heart beat, etc. are controlled in the brain stem--one of the most 'ancient' structures of the brain. There are small clusters of cells that keep your heart ticking away, that make sure you keep breathing--until one fine day they don't, and then you're dead. There is also a small cluster of cells in the brain stem that send you into the oblivion of sleep and another cluster of cells that wake you up. When people have strokes that wreck this wakefulness center, they don't wake up. — Bitter Crank

Yes, but I can focus on each breath I take and and change the rate of my breathing. The same for my blinking and heart-rate. I could do the same with walking to my mailbox. I could focus my attention on each step and the movements I am making. But I don't do this normally because it is boring. I'd rather think about what might be in the mailbox or the reason I'm changing my rate of the other processes that are normally involuntary. How is it that these changes wouldn't normally happen if I weren't conscious? Consciousness must have some kind of control over other functions that we don't normally think of.

Let me clarify: The motor cortex, which operates the motion of the body, is fully aware of what your body is doing--otherwise it couldn't successfully move you around. The cortex is 'conscious' of proprioception, for instance. It has to be aware of that in order to keep you upright while you are walking.

The visual cortex in the rear of your brain is aware of the impulses coming from the retina. It processes those signals, and puts together a cohesive picture of the world--for your conscious mind, among other parts, to enjoy and make use of.

There are various parts of the brain that are aware of what they are doing, but your conscious mind isn't aware of them, most of the time. The enteric nervous system operates the digestive track--a very complicated batch of processes that your central nervous system is mostly (and happily) unaware of. You don't want regular dispatches from the bowels about what is going on there. When you do hear from the gut, it's usually bad news--like something is going to be expelled in the very near future whether it is convenient for you, or not.

So, various parts of your brain are aware and interacting in ways that your conscious mind is not a part of. That's a very good thing, because if your conscious mind were aware of all that stuff, you would have no time left to think. — Bitter Crank

Is it accurate to say that these things are aware though? Doesn't that require a priori knowledge that some bit of information represents something else - that the electrical signal means something other than just being an electrical signal of a certain strength and duration? After all, awareness is always of something. It doesn't make sense to say that something is just aware.

Yes, but what are words except visual scribbles and sounds? If you say you think in your language, then you are essentially saying that you think in visual scribbles and sounds. — Harry Hindu

They are neither. When I am thinking I have no sound waves hitting my ear. Blind and deaf people learn language. The only thing that creates language is semantic content. — Andrew4Handel

Read the second sentence - the one that came after the one you quoted, but you omitted. I said that you think in visual scribbles and sounds, not hear them. You can only think in the same forms that your experiences of the world take, and it is a fact that the only way you could have learned a language is by having some kind of sensory experience and then store those experiences, or qualia as some call them, for recalling later. You must have also had some prior understanding of association - of being able to associate certain sounds and scribbles with other things - other visuals, sounds, feelings, tastes and smells.

Here is a case where a man never learned a language until he was an adult. How did he understand how to dress and feed himself without a language? How could he have organized his thoughts? When he finally understood what language was and how to use it, his surprise wasn't that he could suddenly think. It was the knowledge that there are shared symbols for other things that may be used to communicate with others. This is no surprise to us because language's primary use is communication, not for thinking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_Without_Words

https://vimeo.com/76386718

Could blind people learn a language if they couldn't hear and feel (braille)? What about deaf people that are also blind and can't feel?

Image is a visual metaphor and vision is only one type of experience.

You have done what I was saying and misrepresented experience. I don't have pictures or sounds in my head when I am thinking. I can bring up a visual image like "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously" which is bereft of meaning but I am not usually envisioning orthography. — Andrew4Handel

What visual image of "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously" could you have other than of the scribbles themselves? You seem to be confusing "visual image" with meaning itself. The scribbles don't mean anything because they don't refer to anything. You can imagine words in meaningless patterns just as you can imagine colors and sounds in meaningless patterns inside your mind. But we still can't think in anything other than colors, shapes, sounds, feelings, etc. Sometimes a few of us assemble certain things in meaningful, new patterns and come up with some really great ideas. The theory of evolution by natural selection is one of those ideas. But Darwin could have never come up with that theory without exploring the world and observing nature closely.

Visual images rarely come to me. If they do I am trying to remember a place or event or dreaming. But even in the case of memory words have a more powerful effect than the images and I have a narrative about the image I have recalled.

You can't simply assert what someone else's experience is in any kind of valid way. That is not science or philosophy or phenomenological analysis.

If I was lying about the nature of my mental states how would you know anyway? — Andrew4Handel

Science is based on observation and I am observing your own use of language. So yes, I can make an assessment about how you think. If you aren't thinking about what the words you use mean when you use them, then how is it that you are able to communicate with me at all? What is it you mean, or are referring to, when you type a particular string of symbols? What is it you want me to think when I look at your scribbles? Just more scribbles - or actual things and processes and states that exist apart from ourselves, out in the world that we can experience, if they were right next to us?

But when you say Visual Model what is that? I want to know what the Model is. If you say the Model is just Neural Activity then I think there is a big Explanatory Gap in going from Neural Activity to the Conscious Experience. Measuring the Neural Activity is the David Chalmers Easy Problem of Consciousness but understanding how the Visual Experience happens as a result of the Neural Activity is the David Chalmers Hard Problem of Consciousness. I don't believe the Hard problem has been solved yet. — SteveKlinko

How is there any explanatory gap at all, much less a big one, if neural activity IS the model? Again, all you see is a brain, or a model of the brain on a computer screen with different colors representing certain activity in the brain. Just as the model on the computer screen isn't the real brain, the brain you look at when a doctor opens up someone's head is just a visual model of someone's neural activity.